The Possible Role of the Insula in the Epilepsy and the Gambling Disorder of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Overview

Journal J Behav Addict

Publisher Akademiai Kiado

Specialties Psychiatry
Social Sciences

Date 2016 Aug 26

PMID 27558486

Citations 2

Authors

Dalma Tenyi

Csilla Gyimesi

Norbert Kovacs

Tamas Tenyi

Jozsef Janszky

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background The retrospective diagnosis of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky's (1821-1881) neurological and psychiatric disease proves to be particularly interesting. Recent neurobiological data suggest a solution to the questions regarding the writer's retrospective diagnosis, claiming the insular cortex to be the origin of the rare ecstatic seizures. Regarding Dostoyevsky's pathological gambling, this hypothesis is consistent with another finding from recent neuroscience, namely that the malfunction of the insula could be an important underlying pathology in gambling disorder. Case study Literary and scientific overview (1928-2015) on the subjects of Dostoyevsky's epilepsy and gambling disorder. Discussion and conclusion Taking Dostoyevsky's neurological (ecstatic seizures) and psychiatric (pathological gambling) disease and the crossroads into consideration, these two disciplines make regarding the underlying pathology, we would like to suggest a speculative theory that these two disorders have a common insular pathomechanism, namely, the malfunctioning of the risk prediction-risk prediction error coding system. Furthermore, based on Dostoyevsky's case, regarding gambling disorder in general, we would like to hypothesize that the three common gambling-related cognitive distortions (near-miss effect, gambler's fallacy, and the illusion of control) can be all attributed to the impairment of the anterior insular risk prediction-risk prediction error coding system.

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